Who's Your BabyDaddy?

Yesterday, we ordered and downloaded profiles for two sperm (or, as Shrike prefers to call it, "baby-juice") donor candidates.

We got info on a third one today, but had just about decided to rule him out anyway when we realized that he didn't actually fit our criteria; not sure how I missed that.

But, I'm getting ahead of myself.

Here's what we're looking for, ideally:

ID Consent
(When the kid is 18, s/he can get his name, address, etc.)

Lifetime Photos available
(About 6 photos from infancy through adulthood.)

Caucasion
(Because we are. Let's not complicate the kid's life any more than necessary.)

5'10" or taller
(Shrike is 5'0" so this is important to her, although I'm 5'4")

Thin or athletic build
(Very important to me, to balance my genes for morbid obesity.)

Smart
(Very important to both of us.)

No family history of any kind of disease that's possibly genetic

Attractive

We're not being particularly picky about hair or eye color in that the important thing (I think) is that the kid just look enough like both of us that no one questions that it belongs to whomever it's with at the moment.

Shrike and I look enough alike (very similar coloration, hair type, etc - and that's really what people notice first) that we figure my genes will make it look as much like her as it does me, in that regard.

We are (although I feel a bit guilty about this) avoiding guys with red hair or red-headed relatives. We both like red hair alot, for looking at, but I think we should avoid setting the kid up to have to deal with every little old lady that s/he meets making comments like "Where'd you get that red hair?" and "Your Daddy must be red-headed!" So we're going to play it safe on that one. (No offense to you carrot-tops out there. Actually, you probably understand our concerns better than anyone!)

So, we've searched our sperm bank's database for white guys over 5'10" who are ID Consent donors, and then started narrowing from there.

Today I finally broke down and made a spreadsheet, so I can compare them side-by-side, including availability of photos, and whether there's anything in his summary profile (medical info on him and his parents, grandparents, siblings and children) that is of concern to us.

My dad is a doctor, so I emailed him and my mom to ask how picky we should be about things like diabetes, heart disease, cancer, etc, and also whether there's anything in our family that I should know about and avoid duplicating from the donor's side.

My mom encouraged me to avoid guy with issues that are already in my family (like diabetes), but also said that, "You are unlikely to find a donor who had a family in which no one ever died of anything."

Um, yeah. I guess she's got a point there.

Our search yielded 22 results. We've complete ruled out about ten for things like pet allergies, the diseases above, and the one guy who's mom had a cleft palate. (Surely they would have eliminated him if that's genetic, but why take chances?)

Then we've flagged about eight as "iffy" based on similar criteria.

That leaves the two guys that we downloaded yesterday and, I think, two others. We'll probably download them later today.

Of the two that we've seen, we like them both and agree on which would be our first choice.

We also agreed that the third one (who turned out to not be "ID Consent") was a distant third choice, because we were less than impressed with his academic record and test scores.

Is that elitist of us?

We were saying "Well, we shouldn't rule him out completely . . . ." but then we kept finding ourselves referring to him as "the dumb guy."

I told Shrike that, whether it's right or not, if our gut reaction was to think of him that way, he's probably not who we should choose to father our child!

The other two are anything but dumb.

"Doc" is an emergency physician and my dad said that his MCAT scores are "good enough to get you into Harvard or Yale."

"Popeye" (he lists spinach as his favorite food! WTF?) has a BA in English, is working on a Master in Journalism (which is what Shrike's BA is, so that's cool) and scored a 1470 on the SAT. He's evidently pretty darn good at math, too, for an English major!

Both of these guys have lifetime photos available, but the other two that seem to be at the top of our list don't.

Our better sides tell us that shouldn't matter and we should only get the adult photos of TheGuy, so that we can show them to the kid, but our shallower sides want to make sure he's cute!

Both of their baby photos are pretty cute, but as my mom also points out, "All babies and little kids, as long as they're well-nourished, well-cared-for and well-dressed, are cute."

(She's a smart one, that mom o' mine.)

The sperm bank recommends that we choose at least three, since they can't promise that our first choice will be available.

We'll probably wait til we've settled pretty solidly on our top three before ordering any lifetime photos, at $100 per set.

Some of the guys also have audio interviews available (and one-question clips available online for free). We will probably wait and just get the CD for TheGuy, rather than using that as a criterion for making a decision.

So, that's where it stands right now. I'm dying to check out these other two guys, but I promised Shrike I'd wait til she gets home and can look over the spreadsheet with me again. "Adventures+In+Baby+Making" "My+Mama+Said"